


where can we go from here but down

by lynxalted



Series: you said that we could fight the sun [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Character Death, F/M, High Honor Arthur Morgan, Suicidal Thoughts, bg Charles/Arthur if you squint, but only the briefest mention, like one word
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25615441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynxalted/pseuds/lynxalted
Summary: Most outlaws have dæmons that can keep up when a robbery goes south. Small dæmons, winged dæmons, fleet-footed dæmons. It's hard to run from the law when your dæmon is massive.But Sadie has always been good at adapting.
Relationships: Jake Adler/Sadie Adler, Sadie Adler & Abigail Roberts Marston, Sadie Adler & Arthur Morgan
Series: you said that we could fight the sun [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859899
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	1. silent shadow, growing

**Author's Note:**

> This may be sort of loose in adhering strictly to HDM lore in some places, as a forewarning.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @ lynxalted!
> 
> -
> 
> If you’re unfamiliar with HDM, then all you need to know about dæmons is that they are animal companions, but also, most importantly, the physical manifestation of someone’s inner-self or soul. Dæmons are usually the opposite sex of their person. When a person is young, their dæmon can change forms, but once a person reaches puberty, they often “settle” into a permanent form that represents the person’s character.

When Sadie is fifteen years old, everyone thinks that Rig will settle as a coyote. He seems to favor that form, sly and clever as it is. _N_ _ot a big, bumbling wolf,_ he says, _or a fox that's too small._

Despite his words, he has a habit of taking the form of big creatures. A stallion, a bull, an elk. Together, they take up space. Together, they're a woman who doesn't give way to any one. Sadie likes that, but she likes him as a coyote, too. She can wrap her arms around him and hide her face in his shoulder fur. He always _yips,_ too, when she goes to hug him, quietly and right below her ear. He has a way of cooling her anger with that one little sound in a way that no one else can manage. 

_Just right,_ he says, and even Sadie believes that he'll settle as this.

* * *

She's a week past sixteen, walking home from town with the evening light to guide her, when three men step out of the trees. Rig snarls from her heels, pale shoulder fur rising. The men ignore him. One of the dæmons, a wolf, prowls forward to growl back. Another, a jackrabbit, skips to the side to look down the road. Sadie looks, too, but there's no one else around. 

"I have a gun," Sadie says, and pulls it from its stiff, old holster. Her hands are shaking. "I'll shoot you."

The man up front sneers. His dæmon, some sort of bug, buzzes loudly around his head. "Will you now, little girl?"

Sadie stretches her thumb towards the hammer. Rig snarls again. "Yes," she says. The hammer clicks.

Her bravado doesn't sway the man. He advances. "You're full of shit," he says.

Sadie squeezes the trigger. It's harder to do than she imagined, but she squeezes it nonetheless. There's a loud pop, the gun recoils in her hand, and a body hits the ground. The buzzing has stopped, with nothing but a small cloud of gold spiraling towards the ground as the only evidence that a dæmon once existed. 

Silence, then, "You little _bitch._ " The wolf dæmon leaps forward, her human fumbling for his own gun. Sadie desperately tries to fire hers again, but it clicks without a bang. _Empty._

And then Rig rises up behind her, tall and broad, bigger than he's ever been. And he _roars._

The jackrabbit dæmon cries out and leaps away. The wolf flinches backwards, tucks her tail between her legs, and together, all four of them turn and run.

Sadie is still shaking. A man is dead at her feet. His eyes stare without seeing up at the darkening sky. But that doesn't bother her. "They could have killed us," she says. "They could have -" she cuts herself off. _No. Don't think about that._ Instead, she shoves her pistol back into its holster and turns to look at Rig, still big and broad.

"You can change back now, Rig," Sadie whispers. She wants to wrap him up in her arms, hear his little coyote yips beneath her ear.

Rig hesitates, turning his own ears back. They're small and round, and when he moves them like that they seem to disappear against his head. "Sadie," he says slowly. "This is... _me._ I think."

"Oh," Sadie says breathlessly. She steps back, to look at him better. He's huge, of course he is - grizzly bear boars are never small things. The last bit of light catches his fur, light and golden, like her own hair. 

Rig scuffs a paw across the hard packed dirt of the road. His claws are long and hooked. And his paw -

"Rig," Sadie lifts her own hand. She curls her fingers, as if imagining claws instead of blunt, human nails, and then holds her palm out to Rig. He settles back on his haunches and sets a forepaw against her hand. It dwarfs her immediately. The pads are rough against her own callused skin.

There's a question in the air, and Sadie answers it, rushing forward to hug his bulk. "This is perfect," she whispers. His own furry arms wrap around her, squeezing her against the soft fur of his underbelly.

"Are you sure?" he asks. "You won't miss me as a coyote?"

"I will," Sadie murmurs. She can't lie to him. Can't lie to herself. "But I always liked it when you was big. And you can hug me back, now."

Rig tips his chin down, blowing out a _whuff_ of breath. "No one will ever mess with us again."

* * *

Looking back, she wishes that were true. For a long while, it is. She meets Jake, and is glad when she marries him for a multitude of reasons. For one... well, he's _sweet._ And he never treats her like she's just another woman. He lets her be _her._ And she is tough and ferocious and she can work just as hard as he can. Harder even, when she gets the bit between her teeth and will throw herself at a job until she's bruised and sweating and all but foaming at the mouth.

In return she gives him her love and unconditional trust. There are precious few people she will give this to in her life, she knew that when she was young. She was reminded of that when Rig settled. Jake, she knows, deserves this gift. 

Another reason she's glad she married Jake? He's just as trusting and sociable as his Labrador dæmon. That's not a bad thing, exactly, and the two of them are often wary of strangers at first, of course, but they're also so willing to reach out to anyone who happens to pass by their little ranch. And where would he be if he didn't have Sadie and Rig to help back him up when things turn sour? Rig is, after all, an effective deterrent for mischief.

Up until he isn't.

"They killed him." She doesn't want a reply. She just wants to wake up. 

Rig is on the floor a few feet away, paws over his muzzle as he moans, low and painful. "Jake. Zara." His head snaps up at the same time Sadie's does. His eyes track the sound of footsteps above their head. His ears twitch and his claws scrape the floorboards when the muffled sound of raucous laughter filters down. "They're in _our_ home."

"We could kill them," Sadie rasps. Deep down, she knows that's not true. There's so many O'Driscolls up there. If they opened fire then surely she or Rig would be hit near immediately. "'specially that fucker that killed our Jake." 

"They'll kill _us,_ " Rig whispers back. 

"So?"

"Sadie!"

Sadie blinks at his outburst, and realizes quite suddenly that her lashes are wet and heavy. Rig shuffles across the floor to her, and she collapses, sobbing, against him. 

She doesn't know how much time has passed until she's jerked from uneasy slumber by the sound of gunshots. There's shouting, too, and then it all goes quiet. 

"There's still someone here," Rig whispers, ears turned up to the cellar ceiling. He lurches to his feet, and Sadie uses him to help herself up. "Sounds like less." He's quiet for a long time, and together they listen to footsteps and doors slamming. It settles down into silence, only a creak now and then betraying the presence of people. Rig says then, in a soft voice, "Maybe one person, now. Should we go up there?"

They don't get to come to a decision themselves. Instead, the cellar door is flung open, and Sadie is drug, kicking and screaming, back upstairs. As soon as she squirms free she has a knife in one hand, and between her and Rig this greasy man can't get close to her. 

This greasy man who does nothing but _laugh._ He dances this dangerous little dance, false-lunging and knocking furniture around. It's because of him that her house catches on fire, and it's only because of two other men that Sadie doesn't try to slit his throat. 

One of the men, with clever dark eyes and sleek black hair, is nicer than the first. He coaxes the knife from her hand and wraps a blanket around her shoulders. Distantly, she can hear his dæmon asking Rig if he's alright, and if he wants to come back to some place warm with all of them. Just as distantly, Sadie and Rig agree. She doesn't remember much of the journey except in bits and pieces. The crack of timber, the glowing roar of fire. Bitter, cutting cold. Rig trudging through the snow next to the horses.

They bring her to Colter, set her up in the barn, since it fits Rig better. It's warm, and she has a bed, and she has Rig. That's all that matters. She doesn't feel glad, though. She feels numb, and there's a hole in her chest that aches something fierce. 

She's not sure how much time passes before someone comes to visit her. Not just to give her food or water. To actually _visit_ her. 

The barn door creaks open, and an osprey lands on the floor near them in a flutter of black-and-white wings. "Hello," he says, sharp gaze on Rig. "I'm Portunus."

"Rigby," Rig says stiffly. "Rig."

The bird mantles his wings. "Then I'm Port."

"And I'm Abigail." Sadie looks up then, to see a woman with dark hair, bundled up in a thick coat. She's pulling her gloves off, looking over Sadie with furrowed brows.

Sadie forces herself to sit up. That's all she's doing, though. She can't be bothered to even run her fingers through her own hair. "Adler. Sadie."

"Have you been eating, Mrs. Adler?"

"Sorta." Sadie glances guiltily at the plate nearby, half-eaten and long cold. "Y'all shouldn't waste food on me right now."

Abigail frowns. "Nonsense. I think you need a little kindness right now." She pulls a chair over and settles down. She doesn't bother to spread her skirts neatly, like a lady might, instead shuffling her legs and relaxing back. Sadie decides then that she likes her. "I'm sorry about your ranch. And your husband most of all."

A dull ache pounds in Sadie's chest, and she looks away. "Ain't nothing you coulda done."

"What was his name?"

"Jake."

"And Zara," Rig adds from the floor, his voice hollow with misery. Port creeps closer to him, and when Rig doesn't shoo him away, reaches out with his beak to preen through the grizzly dæmon's blonde fur. Abigail is quiet for a few long moments, and Sadie spends that time stifling the lump threatening to crawl up her throat. If she lets it, she knows that she'll cry. And if she cries, she doesn't know if she can stop. Everything she knows and holds dear truly is gone, and she doesn't have family to reach out to anymore. Jake's side never liked her and her side... Well, they died or drifted away years ago.

And then Abigail says, "You can run with us for a while. Dutch says it's okay."

Sadie scowls. "Rig's too big for a band of outlaws, ain't he?"

Abigail glances at Rig. "Bears can move fast when they need to. I've seen it. And they can be sneakier than you think." She shrugs. "Besides, you won't have to do no robbing or nothing. Just staying with us until you can get back on your feet."

Rig and Sadie share a look, and then Sadie nods. "Alright. Until I have something to my name again."

"Good!" Abigail says with a flicker of a smile. "Besides, it's not like some of us don't have dæmons that are a bit of an inconvenience, sometimes. Hosea has one of them bighorn sheep. John his damn wolverine. And Arthur has a doe, which ain't so bad for the running part. And yours means Micah probably won't mess with you much.”

"Micah," Sadie echoes. "He the one with that weasel dæmon?"

Abigail nods, and Sadie curls her lip up. "Met him. Don't like him much." He burnt her ranch house down.

"You and me makes two." Abigail shakes her head. "I don't think Arthur likes him much, either."

"And Arthur. Big guy, kind voice?" Sadie asks. Abigail nods again. "And I know Dutch. He's been nice to me." For an outlaw. "You'll have to introduce me to everyone, if I'll be staying a while."

They talk for a while longer, and Sadie finds that she appreciates it more than she thought she would. At the end, when Abigail rises to her feet to leave, Sadie snakes out a hand and grabs the other woman's forearm.

"This gang," Sadie says, slowly. "Y'all fight with the O'Driscolls?"

Abigail hesitates. "Yes."

The ache in her chest is replaced with something like fire; a coal catching the wind in a dry stand of pine. "I want them all dead."

"Yes," Abigail says again, "yes, I reckon you do. Maybe you'll have your chance, Mrs. Adler. I _hope_ you do."


	2. unbound be laws

When Sadie isn't overcome by grief, she watches.

And she learns.

For a band of outlaws, the Van der Linde gang is, for the most part, welcoming. Abigail most of all, and Mary-Beth, who comes to comfort her late at night. But Arthur is, too, in his stiff and awkward way.

"You doing ok, Mrs. Adler?"

Sadie looks up to see him, all broad shoulders and rough features. "Fine," she says stiffly. 

He nods back. "Well... if you need anything just holler." And then he's gone. She watches him especially, over the next few days. 

He's constantly busy, that man. In the morning he has his coffee, and then she sees him with grain over one shoulder or a hay bale hefted to his knees. Sometimes he vanishes for hours, days, at a time. Sometimes he comes back with blood on his shirtsleeves and a cold, distant look in his eye. Those times, he always has money for the box. When he doesn't come back looking like the man on the bounty poster, he comes back with fresh meat. She wonders, idly, when she spots him skinning a white-tail carcass, if it bothers him to put an arrow in something that looks exactly like his dæmon. 

His dæmon's name is Saiph, Sadie learns, and she's a stunning, delicate thing next to the outlaw, all sleek tan fur and obsidian-dark eyes. Somehow, though, Sadie doesn't doubt that she can be just as ferocious as Arthur. 

Gentle, and kind, though, too. This is made clear when Sadie sees Saiph herding young Jack and his dæmon, in the waddling shape of a duck, away from the cliff side. "It's dangerous," she whispers to them. "You can throw rocks off when your mama is there to watch, okay?" 

Jack giggles, says, "Okay!" and runs off, his dæmon turning into a hound dog and chasing after him. Saiph watches them go, big ears pricked, then turns and dances on dainty hooves back to Arthur's side.

For the most part, the camp is alive with the sound of wing beats. Several of the dæmons are birds, which Sadie thinks makes sense. They're smaller, able to fly or cling to the bedroll behind a saddle. They're not a hold-up like Rig would be. Dutch's Venere is one, Abigail's Portunus, another. The preacher, too, has a big, shaggy raven that follows him like a shadow. 

And the O'Driscoll.

Rig snaps his jaws lazily at Kieran's little rust-and-gray chickadee, tail feathers slipping through his teeth. The man is shaking, eyes wide and rolling like a fearful horse's, and he strains against his rope in the effort to better shrink away from the force of Sadie's anger. The camp tends to turn a blind eye to her when she confronts the man. Once, Dutch turned the corner, saw her cussing out Kieran, and turned right on his heel. 

That's all the blessing she needs, really.

"I'm not the one that killed your husband," Kieran cries. "Miss, _please._ I ain't an O'Driscoll no more."

Rig snarls and Sadie echoes him, "Then why're you trussed up?"

"Well I don't _want_ to be an O'Driscoll no more."

Sadie leans in close. "I could make sure of that, you know."

Kieran's brows twitch, drawing together. He's still nervous but curious. "How?"

"Bullet," she says, and relishes in the fear that creeps back into his face, "right between the eyes." She taps him there, too, for good measure. 

"Mrs. Adler."

Sadie turns her gaze. Dutch stands nearby, his magpie dæmon strutting along behind him. "I know you're angry, and have plenty of reason to be, but please do not kill our guest."

"Why shouldn't I? He ain't nothing but a rat."

Dutch spreads his hands, placating. "Because if we can get information out of him, he'll lead us right to Colm."

"And then we'll take care of it all," Venere whispers to Rig, and he rumbles at that, pleased with the imagery.

Sadie isn't as easily swayed. "One of his men - I know which one killed my husband. _I_ want to kill him."

Dutch moves to the side, gesturing for Sadie to follow him. She growls, but falls into step next to him as he leads her and Rig away from Kieran. "And you will have your chance, Mrs. Adler. But I must warn you that revenge is a fool's game."

"Don't got much more to lose," Sadie points out. 

She's offered a small smile. "No," he agrees softly, and there's something calculating in his dark gaze, "I guess you do not."

* * *

By the time she manages to snag a revolver off the ammo wagon for herself, the camp is moving. Down south, where the air is damp and stifling. The lake provides a bit of a breeze, but once she's in among the tents and the trees she can feel the air wrap around her like a damp sheet. No matter how often she splashes her face with water, she still feels filthy with sweat. 

She gets work, though. Asks Dutch for it when she can't stand sitting around any longer without helping out. Thinks she might like to have hard work to keep her mind off things.

Chopping vegetables, she learns, is not the hard work she'd been imagining. And the camp cook - oh, she wants to gut him like a fish. Wants Rig to crush his stupid little crab dæmon in his jaws and free them both from this tedious hell. Her saving grace is Arthur, no matter how gruff and angry he is about it, and she'd thank God if she had half a mind to even think about believing in such a thing. 

" _Shopping,_ " Rig mutters as he trundles along beside the wagon on their way to Rhodes. "Some grand ol' improvement, this."

"You wanted to get out, didn't you?" Saiph replies in a haughty tone. "Well, you're out."

Rhodes is a dismal little town, but maybe that's just because the air is the same here as it is back in camp. And maybe also because she knows she isn't going to get good, fresh air unless she treks all the way back up to the Heartlands, or even further back into Ambarino. The dirt is red, red as rust, and that's a bit interesting, but it loses its novelty when it clings to everything it touches. 

"So," she says, drawing the revolver she pilfered a few days ago and checking down the sights, "what's the plan?"

Thankfully, Arthur is too busy telling her _no, we ain't robbing the place_ to bother asking where she got the gun. Considering the way she's wielded a kitchen knife around him twice in the past, she's under the assumption that he wouldn't like her having a _more_ dangerous weapon in her hands.

Shame, though, that they're not robbing the shop. She's got a _real_ itchy trigger finger.

Still gets to rip her skirts off and shove herself into _proper_ clothes, though, and nothing feels quite as freeing as wearing a blouse and pants. Feels even better to see the appalled look of the shop-keep. "What, you gonna clutch your pearls, too?" Sadie asks, handing over what little money of her own she has. "For the clothes." The rest of the groceries she pays for with the money Arthur handed her.

Rig, sprawled outside the shop, lifts his head to look her over when she comes out, and gives a little nod. "Comfortable," he remarks, and puts his head back on his paws. "There's a gun store, down the way."

Sadie hums at that. "Need money first."

Arthur comes back from the post office. Lets her have the reins when they clamber back up into the wagon and start the slow drive back. The sun is creeping higher and the air is starting to simmer, and Sadie finds herself looking forward to the shade of the trees back at camp, even with the humid air.

She gets her itch scratched, too, when two men with scrappy-looking dæmons ride up. The one, on Arthur's side, with a coonhound at his horse's heels. The other, on her side, with a small, reddish coyote. They've got shit to say, and she's go no time to give them for that shit. She's been around enough outlaws, Van der Linde gang or not, to know that these men have nothing but ill intentions. 

Sadie leans around Arthur, levels the barrel of her gun, and pulls the trigger. On the other side, Rig barrels into the man's wolf dæmon. There's a puff of red and gold, and the man slumps over, slipping sideways in the saddle. Up ahead, Saiph bounds towards the turn in the road, fluffy white tail up and waving. She skids to a stop, then comes racing back. "More up ahead."

"Get to the trees, circle 'round," Sadie tells Rig. She feels the strain on their bond as he does, but she's too focused on running a man over with the horse and wagon to dare paying it much more mind than she already is. She meets up with him behind a boulder, and he tucks himself down nice and low while she pops off shots from relative safety. Between her and Arthur, they get the job done, bloody and brain-spattered as it is.

Arthur must put in a good word or other such suggestion for her, back at camp, because Sadie gets a rifle and a set time for watch duty instead of a scolding - but Arthur did say he had no reason to tell Dutch about their... _incident_.

She's more than happy to prowl the copse at night, and if her and Rig get up to some mischief of their own, then so be it. 

Funny, to send Rig charging out of the brush at ill-doers, attracted as they are by smoke and light. Funnier, to watch them turn tail and bolt without bothering to figure out if the grizzly is a dæmon or not. 

"Ain't no brown bears out here," Sadie muses, shouldering her rifle. "Don't they know that?"

"Now, now," Rig replies, "we weren't really giving them much opportunity to think, now was we?"

* * *

She has a knife in one hand, twirling it absently, and her other spread out on a blood-stained, knife-cut table top one evening, watching as Arthur dances a knife between his own fingers. He gets a little too close to his index finger and hisses, adding one more red stain to the table. Beside him, watching intently, Saiph flattens her ears.

"You ever get shit for having a deer dæmon?" Sadie asks, taking up her own knife when Arthur stabs the point of his in the table. 

"Sometimes," he drawls back, reaching out his uninjured hand to rest it on Saiph's back. "Some fellers think I'm weak for it, but they ain't never seen a doe box."

"Sure," Sadie says. When she finishes her round with only a small slice, she adds, "I've seen deer chew on bones, during the winter. Some of 'em nibble on carcasses, too, even if it ain't desperate times."

Arthur grunts. "Animals that eat plants ain't so innocent and sweet all the time." He doesn't pick his knife back up, instead turning his gaze out towards camp. "Some folks think your dæmon says everything about you at first glance. Some would think a gal like Miss Tilly would be a sweet li'l thing, with her dragonfly dæmon. But a dragonfly is a hunter just like a hawk or a wolf. Or Hosea, with Cecilia, would be timid or something ridiculous. But a bighorn sheep is damn smart. Always knows where to put its feet no matter how steep the rockface."

"Mhm," Sadie agrees, distantly. She lowers her voice and says, "Now Dutch..."

Arthur laughs at that. "Can't imagine Dutch with anything but a magpie for a dæmon, the way he looks at gold."

There's a comfortable silence. Campfire talk drifts across camp, intelligible but comforting nonetheless. Waves lap at shore, wind stirs the trees, and, somewhere, an owl hoots and is answered by another. 

"You," Arthur says. "Can't imagine you without something like a grizzly though. Maybe a cougar, or a moose, instead. But ain't nothing small would fit you, Mrs. Adler."

That's all he says on that matter, but Sadie can read between the lines well enough. Her eyes shift to Rig, lounging nearby. Once upon a time, she'd thought he'd be a coyote, but now that image doesn't quite fit. She's always been a woman who belonged in the wild, anything less is confining as a circus cage. 

And the rage, she feels, welling up late at night when she tries to sleep. That makes her think of a grizzly sow, roaring a challenge at anyone who dares get close to her cubs. It's... different, sure. She doesn't have cubs, and never wants any. But that righteous, dangerous anger? Now, that, she can understand.

Rig lifts his head, and the two hold each other's gazes. Together, they nurture that anger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ended up being three chapters, needed to break it up a bit! The third chapter will be the last, though :)

**Author's Note:**

> If this garners any interest, I'll definitely do more than just finishing the next chapter! I have some ideas, and am definitely open to prompt ideas/suggestions!


End file.
